Virgin Media's main website dropped off the interwebs on Tuesday with hackivist collective Anonymous claiming responsibility for the DDoS attacks in response to the company's recent cut-off of The Pirate Bay.
The telco said it had to down its "customer-facing" website for about an hour last night, after it was hit by …

Re: dammed if you do

Re: dammed if you do

"....Perhaps annon should be taking on the media industry rather than third parties." That would require some intelligent thinking on the part of the Anons to realise that. Besides, Anon skiddies DDoS the BPI, no-one notices, therefore no bragging rights. Anon skiddies DDoS Virgin and maybe a few people notice, and the skiddies can pretend to each other they're 1337 hax0rs. Don't fall into the trap of believing there is some higher, enlightened motive for their digital vandalism. Meanwhile, they're silly posturing over the Pirate Bay just makes them look like they're advocating theft as a lifestyle choice. Pathetic!

Re: My first Matt Bryant upvote ... almost

Re: dammed if you do

Problem though... Anonymous are idiots, scum and fucktards!

I would be more impressed (pronounced 'believing that they can live up to their own hype') if they were to announce BEFOREHAND that a site was going to be taken down. As it is now, they are just the IT industries version of the Zodiac killer. Claiming practically every outage, but only after its common knowledge that a site is down.

Re: My first Matt Bryant upvote ... almost

I don't like Virgin Media, at all. I don't agree with the blocking of the Pirate Bay either. However, I accept that VM have to comply with the court order and, on this occasion, I do not think they are at fault.

If anyone wants to protest the blocking of TPB, then I believe the more effective route would be some kind of legitimate action like writing to MPs to let them know we don't agree with censorship of this kind. If enough people did that, we *might* be able to nip the problem in the bud, and I hope we can because I find the ideas of judges and MPs that don't understand the internet calling for this kind of measure, and censorship of the internet in general, very alarming.

Re: squilookle

Agreed, write a letter to your MP, but.....

"....we don't agree with censorship...." The legal action against the Pirate Bay has nothing to do with censorship, it is about the pirating and distribution of copywrit material. Now, you may or may not agree with the laws regarding piracy, but to deny the simple facts of the matter by dressing it up as "censorship" is just going to get you laughed at.

Re: squilookle

@Matt Bryant: I actually don't disagree with you, and admit I may be guilty of jumping the gun and mixing different issues here, as I fear this could be the top of a slippery slope that will lead to censorship. The court order has been issued stating the ISPs have to block the site and that sets a precedent that could be used by other groups later, and there is already debate about trying to restrict access to adult content going on right now by blocking it. It looks like we may heading in that direction if we are not careful, if you join the dots. Joining the dots in that way isn't so crazy. Effectively what happened here is the site was blocked because it ran against the interests of one group, in this case, an industry making profits, except the evidence that pirancy is making this industry lose profits is widely debated and disputed in many corners. Next time, it might be the 'anti-filth' lobby, with inaccurate evidence that porn is harming the children. Then it might be the anti-gaming lobby, with questionable evidence that games are causing violence, then political parties wanting to wipe out opposing views... anything.

So, you're right, censorship is not the right word for this, I stand corrected. But it is a related issue and risk as it would be easy to slip into censorship from where we stand. In any event, there is a fine line. I do not disagree with the piracy laws, but I still disagree with this block because because I do not think it is the right approach to the problem:

a) the line has to be drawn somewhere. Should we block Google et al as they help people find illegal content too? What about the other torrent sites? Why is one being singled out?

b) Because of the precedent I ranted about in the first paragraph of this comment and the damage I feel it could do to the freedom of the internet

Re: Well Well

Nope, you fail...

I believe he said 'no other ISP in HIS AREA' (not the entire U.K.) can provide more than 6Mbit.

i.e. Whatever ISP he chooses (other than NTL which provide their own infrastructure to his door), all are subject to the limitations of his BT phone line quality, distance from local exchange etc... They might well advertise 'up to 8Mbit' but that does not guarantee those speeds in reality.

Re: Well Well

Re: Well Well @Ben Naylor

Ben, I'm taking it that your signing off as Muppet and not calling someone so because that would be a little childish wouldn't it...

I think the chap is making a reference to advertised speed vesus actual speed. Point being, often on ASDL, these values can be quite different. As pointed out though, Virgin isn't without is own "speed" issues.

Re: Well Well

Re: Well Well

I think you'll find its the equipment in the local exchange that dictates the broadband speed, the end users speed is also affected by their distance from the exchange and no, not every exchange provides ADSL2 or ADSL 2+. Check out samknows.com

Re: Well Well

Yep, throttling. It's utterly terrible isn't it? Well ADSL in my area ( just about 5 miles outside of a major UK city ) is 1.2MB max even at "low tide" around midnight. Jumped to VM and it's consistently 50MB and moving 120MB very soon!

So you laugh it up all you like dillweed, as BT can stick their crappy little 25MB max ( with the right wind direction and sunshine ) fibre lines up their arses!

Oh and no one uses TPB these days anyway! Anyone with any sense uses private invite-only torrent sites where the users actually care about helping to supply each other with quality controlled ( public broadcast only I might hasten to add ) media!

Re: Well Well

Re: Well Well

I agree. I see people slagging off VM all the time but I'm happy with the service I get. I currently get 40 down/10 up which I think is pretty reasonable. I can download a DVD quality movie in a lot less time than it takes to watch it.

The speeds are about to double with no extra cost and if I'm being throttled (I don't think I am) then I don't notice.

Re: Re: Well Well

Anon needs to step up

This is the fairly boring standard of Anon these days "ohh, you did something we don't like, lets take down your website!". Seems to me this is their default volley and getting a bit boring.

Now.. if they managed to take down the whole of VM ISP.. now THAT would be a stand worthwhile of notice. As it is I think I along with many others are getting bored of Anon's "protests" as they do nothing except give people who are against this kind of censorship a bad name.

Re: Anon needs to step up

Bizarre logic you have there. Take down a website = boring and gives protest a bad name. Take down entire ISP = a "stand" worthy of notice.

Taking a "stand" involves principles. It means identifying yourself and saying this is what you believe and this is what should be done. It means actually accepting that you are willing to be inconvenienced yourself, on principle, to make a point. You are, literally, standing up for what you believe.

What you suggest is none of these, any more than DDoS attacks are. Taking down an ISP is not a "stand". It's more of a "punching someone in a crowd in the back, then hiding".

*That* is what gives give people who are against this kind of "censorship" a bad name.

Stand up for your rights

This is an unwarranted move to interfere with peoples access to the the Internet.. It is driven by companies, who are unwilling to adapt to the market. If prices were low and quality high then the levels of copyright infringement (Note not piracy) would be greatly reduced. It is a dangerous road to embark on, and should be challenged. The PB wasn't actually hosting ANY copyrighted material. Does this mean that google should be blocked?

o Move from one of the five targeted ISPs. Loss of business is a good incentive to make them support your cause

o Downgrade your package

o Write to your MP http://www.- http://writetothem.com. Make supporting you easier than opposing you A written letter is even more effective. Phone their office if you don't get a response.

o Use a different DNS provider such as opendns - http://www.opendns.com

o Use a VPN so they can't see what your are doing. Also useful when using open wifi's